one flew over seppuku's nest - a thread for SHOGUN on FX (2024)

Andy Greenwald on The Watch podcast on Ringer had a hilarious Blackthorne impression on their weekly Shogun recaps that honestly i’m going to miss lol

I'm sure some of his overplaying was intentional on his or the directors' parts. it stands out sharply among the subtlety of most of the other roles. I think I'd still have preferred a different actor in the role though

I came around to like Jarvis as Blackthorne. I kinda think we went meant to dislike him for the first several episodes and Jarvis did a good job being an arrogant oaf. To VG’s point, he suited the character arc.

It was weird to see a little Requiem For A Dream callback pop up in the middle of this.

Meanwhile, I've been reading up on the historical figures the story is based on. Interesting detail in Aijin's wikipedia entry:

At this time, Adams also attempted to send letters to his family and friends in England through the Dutch, but Quaeckerneck and Santvoort did not deliver the letters in order to avoid making Adams's fate known to the English East India Company, which was becoming a trading rival to the Dutch.

Yeah I found this dope-looking book on Adams but it's out of print and copies are going for like $40

https://www.japansociety.org.uk/review?review=546

All of the Shoguns! https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/shogun-season-2-and-3-in-the-works-fx-hulu-1235901617/amp/

hmmmmmm

I feel like the wrong lesson has been learned here.

plenty of history left to draw from, hopefully they can distill a story out of it. Would love it if undermining Toranaga's mystique carried through from the last episode of s1.

Might work if they do a Fargo approach - different cast, another self-contained story, same era and themes. The Continued Adventures of Blackthorne would be pretty disappointing.

Yeah heard some people suggest just adapting Tai-pan or one of Clavell's other books, and make Shogun an anthology. But with Sanada already signed in, I'm pretty sure it will be a continuation of the story. Apparently the real life "Blackthorne" stayed in Japan many more years anyhow